GoG has A TON of payment processors available to buyers, at least in Europe.
I know because I checked it yesterday following all this shit about payment processors pressuring game stores to stop carrying NSFW games, as I intend to start using a different payment processor as the one I usually use (as it turns out, one of those alternative payment processors is already integrated in the banking app of one of my bank accounts).
My fucking god. You may or not believe me, but for the past 7 months, I've been almost completely unaffected by everything going on. I'm extremely lucky in that sense. This is the first thing that has gotten close to fucking with my life. I guess that I knew something was going to happen that would affect me. It didn't feel like something that would actually affect me. True, this is still mostly a minor inconvenience, but it's going to expand to include every M rated or slightly creative or provocative title. We are so fucked. My god.
I’m right with you there - freedom of expression is fundamental, I feel, and freedom of autonomy is not only a privilege to us as conscious, self-aware beings, but also a constant. Imagine a couple billion international people being told they can’t have nice things or freedom by a thousand extremely conservative people from one country. This whole thing is a joke, but if it’s any consolation the people will always fight back. We will always find a way to reject the doctrine of some buffoons. Chances are some people are already compiling a catalogue of every game removed from Steam in order for them to be available. The most low-effort controversial titles may not be much of a loss, but everything following them will be.
I think some people are already compiling lists on Bluesky. Maybe it's time for a new Steam competitor? One that isn't going to take the art of creators off for "controversial" content. The Itch.io CEO (which I first heard about 2 days ago) said that they're looking for more cooperative payment processors, so they might be bringing stuff back? No idea, I can hope though.
All for competition but how is bringing a new competitor to the video game platform market going to solve this when the order came from the payment processors?
Well, the marketplaces are the ones that bent if that makes sense. Apparently, Discover and American Express aren't named. So those could potentially be used.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
is banning porn games on the same level?
no… not even a little, but i think it’s pertinent… these groups keep pushing harder and harder and it won’t stop. it’ll eventually reach you as a person; not just your interests
I do. I legitimately do. But there's people that don't, or only care about their own groups. I care, but there's not much I can do atm besides talk on the internet, which if you look at my comment history, you will see that I do. A lot.
If I can’t have my lgbtq+ and nsfw games, then I don’t need my non-lgbtq+ and nsfw games. Go ahead and play this game and fuck around and find out. I’ll sell all of my consoles real quick. Fuck this mess.
Individual purchases, sure, but I’ll just be delaying them for a months so that’s not really hurting them. The bigger issue is canceling dozens of subscriptions for a month (and then having to re-subscribe to everything). That sounds like a hassle.
And even switching to cash in stores sounds very annoying. I’d have to use a cashier checkout, which means standing in line and then you have to fumble around with cash and wait for change …
I’m not a tech bro saying this, never used it before myself, but crypto seems like a sensible solution to that. Which is good cuz that means they can actually operate as currencies instead of investments
Crypto is a non viable alterative to standard currency
Your also beholden to traditional payment processors to actually get real actual useable money in and out of the system
Crypto is a stock. Not a currency.
It would be like trying to buy a game with shares in apple. No company that isn’t trying to scam people is stupid enough to touch crypto. It’s a unstable asset with no backing.
That makes it ENTIRELY unusable as a form of debt for the purpose of exchange.
Clickbait doesn’t explain properly - the reason queer games were removed from Itch.io is because (and this is another issue) they were one of many media hosters who labeled anything LGBTQ+ as NSFW. The tag itself gets improperly used but anyway. They were still banning under 18s from learning and experiencing diverse life. Romance ≠ sexuality ≠ identity but some people don’t understand that.
18+ might be a legislative requirement in some countries too, for example Russia required it since 2013, not sure if there are more countries that have the same law, but I’m sure Russia isn’t alone in their backward ways.
I keep people repeating this, but where are you getting this information from? I’ve never seen this claim before, and I’ve not noticed this happening when I’ve used itch in the past either?
I’ve noticed a ton of accusations of itch doing seemingly a bad thing after another, and so far all of those claims have turned out wrong. Please give a source at least!
A lot of devs also label their game LGBTQ because THEY the DEV are gay trans or what have you while their game has NOTHING to do with it.
Iv played so many little platformer or rougelite games that have literally zero LGBTQ themes. But are labeled LGBTQ and nsfw purely because the devs like to misuse tags.
There’s a reason why Christ was crucified and it wasn’t for your sins. Christianity is a cult. Time to enter the 21st century people. Even the ancient Romans knew this.
Uhh, I don’t think ancient roman is a good example, unless barbarism, constant expansionism, slavery and patriarchy is your thing, and I’m skipping over a lot of other fucked up shit like forced sex based on status quo. While their culture was indeed rich, they were far from being an example country.
EDIT: Even carthage, the country rome destroyed, would be a better example.
At least in the US, it’s full of regulatory red tape that was designed to pull up the ladder behind the current large payment processors.
Even Musk and his ample bribe money, under the most corrupt administration in decades, hasn’t managed to get full approval for his “X Twitter Money” payment service.
Steam can 100% enter any market they want, especially something entirely digital like online payment processing. That’s pretty closely related to what they do already. They just have to have a reason to want to do so.
Steam makes a reported $3.5 million per employee from commissions alone. Possibly as much at $19 million per head across the board. To put that into perspective, Facebook, one of the most profitable companies on the planet, averages a net income of $780,000 per employee, and Apple at $476,000 per employee.
Steam may not be as large as those companies, but they’re so effectively streamlined. So much of their profits come from existing systems that only need minimal maintenance as opposed to needing to constantly develop new products. It is a well-oiled money printing machine at this point. And nothing they do is based on any sort of speculation bubble threatening to burst at any point.
This is BS. Whatever payment processor they develop will need to interact with all of the major credit card processors: VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. All credit and debit cards use these four brands as the backing network. There is no way around it.
Nobody is going to add a new credit card brand, not even Steam. Amazon doesn’t do it. Twitter doesn’t do it. Ebay doesn’t do it. Nobody does. If they did, they would face immediate retribution from the VMDA empire. Their payments would cease, and Steam would collapse overnight.
That’s almost surely a result of how Valve works internally for approving projects. They operate with a flat management structure. With no bosses or managers, the employees themselves choose which projects to work on. The philosophy is that Valve only hires the best, and they should operate at their best doing what they enjoy instead of simply being told what to do.
Every employee at Valve is given the freedom to join whatever project they choose, or to create a new one. They are encouraged to work on what they feel if the most important project to the company and what will have the highest direct impact on their customers.
If the Valve employees wanted to make Half Life 3, they would. At this point the joke is that Valve simply can’t count to three. It feels like they want to keep that joke going more than make another Half Life game. Half Life 1 and 2, them Episode 1 and Episode 2, Portal 1 and Portal 2, Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike 2. Several of these have had other interim releases, especially Counter-Strike, but those were always based on the previous game and not a totally new game from scratch, much like the Half Life Episodes.
Should be feasible, many of my bills allow it. If there’s an issue w/ lag, they could always allow it only for wallet top-ups and people could use that.
But I think the issue is that if they accept these payment processors at all, they need to comply w/ their policies. Completely cutting them off could significantly hurt sales.
If you read the article, it does not say there has been a second wave or something targetting LGTBQ+ games. It is one person saying their comic was SFW and was delisted.
We should definitely fight back regardless, don’t get me wrong, but as of yet there has not been LGBTQ+ targetting.
The author of the SFW comic should contact itchio and ask why their game was deindexed, since itch did MASSIVE removal of all “adult” and NSFW content beyond what their payment processors asked, as to evade any issue and then reindex according to them.
Again, we should be alert, and we should monitor their firther actions closely, but it’s not time yet to cry wolf with the LGBTQ+ targetting.
And here we go… the inevitable conclusion. If you deviate from a fundamentalist ideal of the norm then your existence is pornographic by its very nature.
It was only a matter of time. Well now what are we waiting for ? Let’s go after the easy target, CollectiveShout & end them & then use the example to “convince” payment processors to back off while simultaneously constructing alternatives
them.us
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